Scorpion82The best tactic for any 4G/4G+ platform to break the RF BVR kill chain is to jam/spoof the AAMs with decoys/deceptive ECM or jam the commlink guiding the missile for SARH style shots, with activation cued automatically by onboard MAWS. Until multi-spectral seekers become common, thats the best tactic IMHO and should be fairly successful against aircraft with limited onboard/internal AAMs.
Well in my opinion the best tactic would be if those aircraft would fly separated by ~20 km or so, meaning a 4 ship would be flying next to each over a distance of 80 km. Through that it could be possible to triangulate any RWR spikes and an approaching threat may not detect all aircraft, while they are radiating from different angles which increases the odds that the stealthy enemy would be radiated from less favourable angles. If there is no indication about enemy radiation it might be useful that only 2 aircraft are looking at a time and randomly go stand by, while the others will start radiating.
Scorpion82@Floyd,
I have my doubts that the Irbis will be able to detect AAMs at any meaningful range if at all.
The supercruise speed isn’t of much relevance either as a Su-35 may at best supercruise when entering enemy airspace or when the position of the enemy is known. M 1.2 – M 1.3 sounds feasable, but that’s the max supercruise speed clean and in optimal conditions. In combat configuration and possibly not optimal conditions the Su-35 will probably not reach more than M 1.1 if at all, but that depends on the circumstances. Anyway it’s not of great tactical significance and the probability that the Su-35 will supercruise if it doesn’t know that something is out there is quite low, because the fuel consumption isn’t low anyway.
TVC is not really helpful when trying to outmanoeuvre a missile. At higher speeds TVC won’t increase manoeuvrability at all and at lower speeds any AAM will own you as the missile is more manoeuvrable, predicts the targets flight path and just needs minor adjustments. You can outrun/outmanoeuvre a missile in combination with CM you have indeed chances, but the Su-35 will be forced into the defensive if engaged first, while the F-35 is turning away while additional F-35s in the background act as sensor and provide MCG.
This would be possible for the Su-35 as well if the DL permits it, but you first need to detect and track the enemy.
Another problem comes with the missile seeker, those seeker heads have a relative low performance in comparison to a fighter radar, the odds that the Su’s missiles will acquire the F-35 are subsequently low, if we assume that the Su-35 might come into position to engage at all. And while the RCS will increase when the F-35 turns away it will also shrink the firing envelope of the Flankers missiles.
In the end you can turn it as you want, the probability that the F-35 would win the majority of BVR engagements is quite high. It’s not undefeatable and with improving sensors and tactics and possibly a good support structure you might be successful. The problem is that up to date no country poses a warfighting system even close to that of the US. Of course it may happen that F-35s are deployed by another nation which doesn’t pose the system of the US, nonetheless the advantages are clear enough. Aircombat is about situational awareness at first and denying it to the enemy is part of the information superiority effort which will give you the edge.
Scorpion82well like i said everything here is highly speculative, while you have no access to the radar your self we have to depend upon what the manufacturer claims, both manufactures say what ever is better for their marketing.
you can opine upon what you like, in my personal opinion, well if you like the Su-35 you will say it can detect it, but if you like the F-35 it won`t that is a child`game and frankly is boring, if you have direct access to the Irbis you will know it it can do it or not, because it is a fact the radar has been tested upon RCS of 0.01sqm, if it works well or not and can do it or not only the Russians know.
But it is a reliable fact the manufacturer has confidence in its product to make such claims.
We all rely on the data published to a more or lesser extend and we have to stick with what is known, complementary to common sense based on technical understanding to elaborate.
As said I don’t doubt that the Su-35 will be able to detect the F-35, but I’m sceptical about the ranges and you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to recognise that the F-35 will enjoy the detection range advantage anyway and that’s the most important point here. If the F-35 detects the Su-35 at lets say 150 km, while the Su-35 detects it only at 90 km, the former has quite some time to either prepare or avoid an attack ad with the new AIM-120D the F-35 might still be in a position to start an attack before the Su-35 will be able to target it forcing it in the defensive. There is ofcourse much more about it than that only. Questions like will the ESM on the Su-35 detect the F-35’s radar emissions and will its jammer be able to jam it? Aircraft aren’t flying alone in an isolated space anyway and F-35s are all networked. That might mean that one aircraft stays behind providing the target information, while the other flies ahead silently and just launch its missiles with guidance provided by the sensor in the background. If VLO would have no meaning whatsoever then no one would work on new designs.
I have neither a special flavour for the Su-35 nor the F-35, I’m interested in both as well as other modern combat aircraft from the US, Russia and western Europe, so bias is in this case certainly not given. I just try to see things as they are and base my opinion on available information and technical understanding.
Scorpion823 times the same pics on the same page? A little waste of bandwith isn’t it?
Albeit the images are pretty nice.
Scorpion82@Teer,
well official sources I have seen, including the official Su-35 Brochure from KNAAPO indicate that the 400 km vs 3 sqm range figure is in fact detection range and I think it was hexpop who reported about that special long range search mode from Russian sources some time ago.
Is there any chance to see that brief chat you mentioned?
Btw PM inbound.
Scorpion82the figure of 0.01sqm at 90km is the data claim, it is not wrong, at least that is the current figure, the russians are not going to design a radar that can not be use against stealth aircraft.
Well even if it is against a 0.01 sqm this range performance is achieved in very specific circumstances. It uses a long range search mode with limited field of view and slow scanning and achieves that range only head on at high altitude. RCS is of course no static value either and there might be tactics to increase the chances of detection, anyway the F-35 will detect the Su-35 much earlier and can adapt to the situation and that’s going to be decisive in most cases. There are certainly a lot of factors which have to be thrown into the equation. It’s certainly not impossible to defeat an F-35 or even the F-22, but the odds that it’s the other way round against threats like the Su-35 are much higher.
Scorpion82Yes it is too long. CG must be taken into account as well. And to my knowledge there is no hardpoint cleared for such a weight, at least not on the Typhoon.
Scorpion82@Floyd,
the 90 km detection range figure is against a 0.1 sqm target and not a 0.01 sqm target, don’t know who came to the idea to add just another zero in between. It’s also much more reasonable with radar range equations when considering 400 km vs 3 sqm. What you have to take into account is that this range is not achieved in normal TWS mode but a specific long range mode with a narrow FOV and in optimal conditions (head on against a higher flying target at 10 km). If you have no idea where to look it’s becoming a pain to find the target and with so much power pumped out the radar emissions are triggering any RWR out there. The F-35 will by any means detect the Su-35 much earlier than the other way round. Supercruise doesn’t help you that much here, during a defensive mission an aircraft will only supercruise if the target position is already known and at least the Su-35s supercruise performance is tactically insignificant anway. TVC won’t help you much BVR, it may help to improve manoeuvrability at high altitudes and minimise trim drag at supersonic speeds if applicated properly, but that’s a question of integration with the FCS and 2-D nozzles might be a bit more limited here.
PAK FA is an entirely different story here, but the Su-35 will have a hard time. It may occasionally win with a bit luck or good enough support structure, but the latter is not a given that’s one of the main problems. How well are individual Russian platforms really linked to each other?
@Mack8,
sooner or later we’ll know. No one designs an aircraft without a target weight in mind, but the F-22 was meant to weight 14365 kg empty with a MTOW of 27272 kg it ended up with 19700 kg empty weight and 38000 kg MTOW.
Maybe the Russians won’t screw up the design that way, but we don’t even know the target weight, except earlier indications about an MTOW between 30 t and 35 t. Given the size of the aircraft I assume it’s the later. We’ll see how it will work out, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the empty weight is ~20 t.
Scorpion82Digital terrain following systems are a better bet anyway. Simpler, lighter, cheaper, stealthier and with the same effect. There is no real need for a dedicated TFR these days, let alone that an advanced ESA radar could do this while doing other things as well, if you really want to have such a capability. The Rafale for example poses both options TF via radar and TRN.
Scorpion82@Floyd,
of course it is easier to upgrade avionics, but that must be done in the first place and it’s a major undertaking. With all that networking it’s not that easy nowadays without some major work on the software to let a new system run in the overall avionics network.
The Su-35 will certainly be able to detect the F-35, but the question is at what range. The unstealthy Su-35 would be detected much earlier than the F-35 and the latter can actually adapt to the situation and the pilot can decide what to do.
As Griffon39 said flight performance is all fine, but it doesn’t help you if you don’t know where the target is in the first place. If the enemy has the information edge he’s going to take the necessary steps to prepare or avoid an attack, before the opponent will be able to target it. It’s not like both aircraft starting at the same altitude and speed head on flying straight line and look what happens.
Scorpion82@Obligatory,
I think they know very well what they are doing and I doubt they do just for fun. Eurofighter engineers found 16% of instability as optimal, but they were eventually stuck with 8% as the actuator technology wasn’t advanced enough at that time to scope with higher degrees of instability.
@Mack8,
that’s an ill approach you try to take there. Every new generation of jet fighters gained weight and that despite miniaturisation of electronics and lighter materials! Why? Because these aircraft are crammed up with increasingly more stuff and the new airframes become more volume efficient. A good example here is the F-15A vs Eurofighter comparison. It’s no secret that the F-15 is significantly larger than the Typhoon about 3.5 m longer, 0.35 m higher, with a 2 m longer wing span and a 6.5 sqm larger wing area. Yet the F-15A’s empty weight is just 12.5 t or in other words 1.5 t above that of the Typhoon! At the same time its internal fuel load is just 5.4 t or ~500 kg higher than that of the Typhoon and that despite its enormous size in comparison!
That the T-50 must be lighter because it’s smaller than the Su-27 is subsequently not really applicable! The F-22 is also smaller than the F-15, but it’s yet about 50% heavier! Do you seriously believe that the T-50 will be magically lighter than its predecessor contrary to ALL other fighters in the world?
@Floyd,
the F-35 is in many ways in fact more advanced than the F-22! But it’s not as capable in some areas such as supercruise and stealth. It’s FCS, cockpit and avionics will all be more advanced than that of the F-22.
Scorpion82Well somewhat overread the “claimed” part, as it came later. Anyway I agree that the PAK FA will most likely be closer to the F-22 with regards to wing loading and TWR, albeit I’m sceptical about the 18500 kg emtpy weight figure claimed by some Russian sources. Neither of them is official and given the complexity and size of the PAK FA I have my doubts. The F-22 is even smaller and yet weights some 19700 kg empty.
The 10-12% degree of instability was claimed in some sources, IIRC it was even mentioned by a designer of the aircraft.
Scorpion82@Obligatory,
and how do you arrive at those data? Particularly for the T-50 where weight data and wing area are unknown. I think that the T-50 will be able to SC faster, albeit not as fast as the F-22 until it gets its new 2nd stage engines.
And for the recording all these aircraft are unstable. The T-50 with 10-12% might be the most unstable aircraft at all.
Scorpion82@Haavarla,
well these are ofcourse valid points, but in this case the question was about acceleration. One must note that this acceleration is usually at low altitudes and subsonic speeds. Transsonic and supersonic acceleration at various altitudes is yet another matter.
Scorpion82And those are all newer designs?
Honestly I have a high opinion on the F-16s acceleration, particular that of block 50/52 examples having seen various types taking off one after each other a couple of times during exercises, the F-16 was definitely one of the fastest accelerating types. The only two aircraft I have seen which accelerated/climbed out noticeably faster were the F-22 and the Typhoon. Once airborne the Viper is a beast in terms of acceleration.
According Jon Beesley the F-35 accelerates about as fast as a clean blk 50 Viper. Earlier and/or loaded models will need their brief inputs of their AB to keep up. It’s in the end the combat config which matters not the clean aircraft and here the F-35 scores due internal carriage of fuel, weapons and targeting systems. But that’s not relevant of we compare it to a Raptor or PAK FA which will do the same (internal fuel and weapons…). The F-35 is about 50% heavier and has about 50% more thrust than a clean Viper, at the same time it’s not 50% larger and that shows that the F-35 is draggier when clean. Acceleration has much to do with drag, the Super Hornet is a good example here, its TWR isn’t bad but its airframe is draggy.
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